SOURCE Events

The globalization of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policies is the most significant development in counterterrorism policy in the last decade. What began as a rhetorical commitment from a handful of agencies has developed into a plethora of policies, deployed from Finland to the Philippines. Under the CVE banner, policy-makers have undertaken, domestically and internationally, engagement and outreach; capacity building and development aid; education and training; messaging and public relations campaigns; surveillance partnerships between policing and non-policing agencies; and targeted ideological interventions with individuals.

This workshop will map and analyse the relationship between ethics and extremism in Europe, with an emphasis on right-wing and Islamist extremism. With extremism defined as the deviation from the values of Western societies, the very concept of extremism is arguably about ethics.

Surveillance is one of the most disputed and debated policies of our time. Yet, an in-depth and more nuanced discussion is missing as to how surveillance affects various stakeholders and is perceived from different angles, both in the EU and the US.

This course presents a cross-disciplinary exploration of the present condition(s) of critique with respect to power, value(s) and economy. These interrelations are important also for disciplines that do not directly engage with the economy, including security studies and peace and conflict studies, because they are implicated in the formation of epistemic and normative orders characteristic for different eras.

Attention to societal security permits industry, technology developers, policy-makers and end-users to capture and act upon threats that often form on the global level (climate change, pandemics, trafficking, migration, trans-national terrorism, etc.), but play out locally. Political measures often do the reverse: efforts at security governance need contextual anchoring in specific local contexts. Media representations play a crucial role in regulating this dynamic.

The conference brings together academics and policy makers working in various fields of Societal Security. During one day, we will address some of the most critical policy issues in today’s EU policies.

The SOURCE Societal Security Network held on 27 June in Bonn a workshop on the new Societal security aspects of the Internet of Things with a focus on the i-car and future transport challenges, bringing together stakeholders from industry, policy-making, technology development, civil society, operations and academia.